The present invention relates to garments. More particularly, the invention relates to a protective suit useful for industrial, business and sport application and is particularly intended for motorcyclists. Still more particularly, the invention relates to a suit of this type which has protective material between an outer material and a lining.
Up to now, leather is customeraly used as an outer material in such protective suits or garments. The leather is meant to protect against skin lacerations and similar injuries, for example in case of a fall from a moving motorcycle. It is conventional to provide padding in some parts of the protective clothes--for example, the elbows, the knees and the shoulders. This padding can also be backed with a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) fiber material or fabric.
It has been found, however, that leather alone offers very little protection from skin abrasions and analogous injuries. Even materials with a higher strength and/or a higher slippage action--such as PTFE-fabric--fail to diminish the danger of skin abrasions.
Tests have shown that such fabrics, including for instance even polyamide fabrics, despite a high strength and slippage action, very quickly wear away due to friction when they contact a rough surface--e.g. by sliding on a road surface--; consequently, hardly any protection against abrasion is achieved by wearing such garments.